Alibaba Q1 earnings: Revenue soars 61%

Alibaba
Chairman Jack Ma

Shu
Zhang/Reuters

• Alibaba
  reported revenue surged 61% year-over-year in the first
  quarter, boosted by its core e-commerce business and
  cloud-computing segment. 
• Net income attributable to shareholders took a one-time
  hit due to the increased valuation of Ant Financial, of which
  shares were given to Alibaba employees. 
• Watch
  Alibaba trade in real time here.

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Alibaba
reported strong first-quarter revenue growth on Thursday morning
as its core e-commerce business and fast-growing cloud-computing
segment provided a boost. 

The Chinese e-ecommerce giant said revenue soared 61%
year-over-year to 80.9 billion yuan, edging out the 80.88 billion
that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting.

That growth was well above the rest of its peers in the FAANG +
BAT group which also includes Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix,
Google-parent Alphabet, Baidu, and Tencent, with Facebook being
the next highest at up 42%. 

Alibaba reported net income attributable to shareholders of 8.7
billion yuan and diluted earnings per share of 3.3 yuan, which
easily beat the 2.57 yuan that was anticipated. 

Net income attributable to shareholders was impacted by an 11.5
billion yuan hit as the result of an increase in the valuation of
Ant Financial causing shares given to Alibaba employees to be
more expensive. Excluding that one-time impact, net income
attributable to shareholders and diluted EPS would have jumped
35% YoY and 33% YoY respectively. 

Adjusted EPS came in at 8.04 yuan, missing the 8.19 yuan that was
expected. 

“Alibaba had another excellent quarter, with significant user
expansion and even more robust engagement
across our growing ecosystem,” CEO Daniel Zhang said in the
press
release.

“Our China retail marketplace business continues to gain share,
with New Retail initiatives driving further revenue growth and
enabling our retail partners to seamlessly serve customers. We
are executing our plan of providing more value and choice to
users along the consumption continuum, with digital entertainment
and local service offerings that tap into big addressable markets
beyond core commerce.”

Shares are up about 4% ahead of Thursday’s opening bell. 

This story is developing…

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